Posted by Flash (134.32.125.116) on November 08, 1999 at 08:53:23:
In Reply to: Hi Flash posted by hub on November 08, 1999 at 07:29:00:
Since 1995 my drug taking has been limited to one batch of mushrooms a year. That's it. Prior to that I experimented most of the recreational drugs. I stopped taking drugs because the were holding me back. The only reason I still take the annual mushroom trip (if you can call it that) is to prevent episodes of CH.
I wouldn't advocate the taking of soft drugs to anyone older than 24/25. I don't regret what I did, it was fun at the time. After spending 4 years almost permanently stoned I am now extremely sceptical of cannabis, I honestly think it does more harm than good.
The LSD in the 70s wasn't any purer than it is today, it was just at a higher concentration. There is still dope going around that's strong enough to make you hallucinate, and driving a car on dope was always pretty fraught (motorcycles come more natural to the stoned mind).
Both LSD and Psilocybin can result in a bad trip, this is more of a problem the higher the dose. That's one of the things that frightened me off the stuff, before I realised it was beneficial to my headaches.
However, nobody has ever died directly from taking either, they are among the least toxic substances known to man. You cannot ingest enough LSD to poisen you. A Human has more tolerance to LSD that an elephant does. The maximum effective dose is quite low, so you don't get any more effect off 1 ton than you get of 0.2Mg. That is scientific fact.
There were 5 deaths indirectly attributed to LSD, all involved cases of people going swimming. Compare that with alchohol. The claim of people jumping out of windows is a common one, but in most cases the cause was PCP (the drug that makes people think they can fly).
I agree that drugs affect people in different ways, especially in the emotional sense. I don't doubt that taking lots of LSD on a regular basis could lead to suicide.
What I am opposed to is misinformation and scaremongering.
The fact is that if less abuse, recreational drug taking, misinformation and scarmongering went on it'd be far easier to get some clinical trials of Psilocybin organised. So for that reason I'm going to continue calling bullshit by it's christian name. Please don't be offended.
Now a word of warning to the next badly informed rumour merchant: neither LSD or Psilocybin are physically, or psychologically addictive. They are in fact proven to be counter-addictive. If you take either drug within ~5 days of the previous instance, it doesn't work. Neither do they lead to harder stuff. 4% of heroin addicts have tried cannabis, 99% have tried beer, most of them masterbate...